PlaceMatters recognizes that successful planning is marked by a collaborative and inclusive participatory process, the presence of skilled formal and informal leaders, and the appropriate and effective application of decision-support tools. The true potential of a decision support tool's capability is realized when married with other components of PlaceMatters' strategy and resources to help develop the "process", "people", and "action" components that are the hallmarks of any successful community planning effort.

PlaceMatters is skilled in project design, implementation, and project evaluation.  In addition, we focus on community capacity building to ensure that communities are able to maintain high quality civic engagement and community design processes.

In addition to our project design capability, PlaceMatters offers expertise in the following three interconnected categories. Please see the links at left or click below for more information:

Tools for Place-Based Planning

Place-based planning values the economic, social, and environmental conditions of place and shifts the focus from episodic, rule-based to dynamic vision-based decision making. We encourage the use of impact analysis, spatial mapping, visualization, and modeling tools to allow decision-makers to better understand the tradeoffs inherent in planning.

More information on PlaceMatters' Tools for Place-Based Planning offerings >

Civic Engagement

Soliciting meaningful public input when developing an adaptive planning approach and grappling with an array of complex issues presents unique challenges.  To address these challenges, we support civic engagement tools and techniques that are engaging, user friendly, efficient in their use of citizens' limited time and varied expertise, and able to handle complex, multidimensional problems. These techniques help bring stakeholders to the table, provide them with information, and gather their feedback.

More information on PlaceMatters' Civic Engagement Offerings >
 

Linking Ecosystem Based Management and Planning

Communities have identified a critical need for tools and processes that effectively integrate ecosystem science in the development and assessment of community planning scenarios in ways the public and decision-makers can readily understand and act on.  PlaceMatters is partnering with other organizations to identify decision support tools that help to integrate ecosystem based management and planning for a more holistic approach that meets community and environmental goals.

More information on PlaceMatters' Ecosystem Based Management and Planning Offerings >